


Masked Life

by Zeke Black (istia)



Series: Pandemic Notes [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dialogue Heavy, M/M, POV Chris Larabee, Pandemics, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:06:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: When wearing a mask outside becomes mandatory during the pandemic, Ezra is prepared.
Relationships: Chris Larabee/Ezra Standish
Series: Pandemic Notes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753729
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Masked Life

"So, now that the governor has finally managed to unstick his finger from his ass and made mask-wearing mandatory outside, not to fear, I have us covered!"

Ezra chortled at his own joke, a delighted cackling sound that always made Chris smile, which he didn't even have to hide this time because Ezra's back was turned to him as he rummaged in a small box he'd dumped on the cabinet across the living room.

"Since I don't share our current government's aversion to listening to actual scientists and doctors and extrapolating the obvious from their calculations and predictions, I knew we'd eventually need a supply of masks, so I enlisted your Groupie down the street--"

Chris's smile vanished and his eye twitched.

"--who, yes, I know you insist fawned over you _just a single solitary time more than a year ago when you first moved in_ , but, still, you have to admit she reserves a thousand-megawatt smile just for you. It's apparent to anyone who isn't in denial; it can probably be glimpsed from space. At any rate, as it turns out, she has a sewing machine! And she's remarkably good at fashioning useful objects like pandemic masks. Plus, being currently unable to work as per many of us, she was pleased to accept my generous commission.

"Voila!"

Ezra spun around to display himself. Even though a colorful patterned mask hid his mouth, his dimples, and his gold tooth, his shit-eating grin was unmistakably signaled by the crinkles around his eyes and the sparkle of triumph and elation in them. Between his hands, he held a generous stack of equally eye searingly bright masks.

"Excellent quality. Several layers, a pocket inside for a filter--of which we have multiples--plus she agreed with me about a layer of silk being touted as a particularly effective shield against airborne droplets, so there's a silk layer in each."

He beamed expectantly at Chris. Chris struggled for a moment, then managed, "Nice color."

The crinkles around Ezra's eyes deepened and his eyes brightened even more. "Yes! My favorite! Matches my eyes."

Chris considered the brocade emerald mask, then looked up into Ezra's more-or-less green eyes, which did indeed shine a more definite green thanks to the proximity of the bright fabric. Chris grinned. "I'll give you that one. Though I thought your favorite color was purple?"

"Oh, indeed!"

Ezra dumped the slew of masks onto the coffee table in front of Chris and fished out a bright purple one with a swirly pattern. He flourished it triumphantly. "Purple also flatters me, as you know."

"Uh-huh." Chris leaned forward and extricated a fancy scarlet number that would've satisfied Hester Prynne and held it up by its ties. "Not to mention red, another favorite, of course, because it accentuates--"

"The chestnut in my hair! Absolutely!" Ezra's beaming look at him now was all warm sunshiny approval. Chris basked in it for a long moment, right up until Ezra blinked and--Chris suspected, though he couldn't see it--licked his lips.

Ezra bent over to rummage through the masks, then straightened flourishing a turquoise concoction that was more aggressively blue and busy than a tropical sea. "Also blue! Definitely my color."

Chris dropped the scarlet mask and leaned back on the couch. "Definitely." He smiled.

Ezra unearthed a yellow mask with a sunflower pattern. "Not my favorite color, but still certainly very flattering."

"Indubitably."

Ezra continued through the pile at rapid speed, brandishing momentarily a dizzying array of terrifyingly bright, patterned masks--violet, lime, aqua, chartreuse, azure, rose (adorned with actual roses in bloom), lilac, canary yellow (with canaries), mauve, cerise, plum (no plums), saffron, moss, amethyst, denim, magenta, jade, mint, pink--each time proclaiming, "Flatters me!" and/or "My favorite!"

To which Chris just kept nodding, feeling that warm, settled feeling in his gut that washed over him anew every time he had reason to pause and savor how this dramatic, clever, often obnoxiously infuriating, but always dependably entertaining man lit him up from within. He'd had the best of good fortune in his youth followed by a numbing black hole of loss and grief there didn't seem any coming back from, or an endpoint.

But now, entering middle age, he'd found good fortune again all unexpectedly with the most bizarre person he could ever have imagined burrowing his way into Chris's heart.

Said bizarre individual who was now dangling a final mask from his fingers, a brilliant orange decorated with scattershot white stars. Ezra's head was tilted. "Not my favorite color. And orange doesn't really flatter me."

His eyes flashed up to lock on Chris, who just smiled noncommittally and kept his mouth shut.

Ezra dropped the lone, unloved mask onto the bright, cheery jumble on the coffee table. "Still, it'll be good cover, should it ever be needed. Very bright, very eye-catching."

He nodded approval as though the True and Noble purpose of masks wasn't to stave off a pandemic, but to help enact anything nefarious Ezra might wish to get away with doing via their cover. After all, if people were staring transfixed at whatever amazingly loud mask was covering Ezra's face, they would likely not be quite as cognizant as they perhaps should be of what his hands were doing.

"Bandits have known the value of masks for centuries." Chris watched as Ezra's greener-than-usual-thanks-to-mask-proximity eyes gleamed an even brighter green.

"Exactly!" Ezra spread his hands in slow motion above his masks as though he were blessing them. His voice turned dreamy. "And now we're actually _required by law_ to don them. I can feel my Standish ancestors rolling in their graves in envy."

Chris chuckled. "If only it weren't for the little matter of a deadly and rapidly spreading sickness."

"Well, yes. Definitely." Ezra's voice turned prim. "Not to forget for a moment the actual, um, purpose of this bounty your dear Groupie--"

Chris's eye twitched.

"--has generously provided us. Speaking of which!" Ezra peeled off his emerald mask and dropped it on the pile, baring his wide, dimpled, gold-tooth-flashing grin in all its untrammeled glory. "Naturally, we didn't forget you."

Oh, fuck. Chris's entire body tensed.

Ezra's voice was silky and sly. "As if we ever would, she being your devoted Groupie and I your Intimate--though mostly unproclaimed--Other." Ezra turned around to rummage in the box again. "So of course I asked her to furnish you with a similar number of masks designed specifically to flatter your taste and looks. Or should I say 'look'?"

Chris's stomach roiled in dread. "Uh--"

Ezra turned around, leaned across the coffee table, and dumped an armful of masks into Chris's lap. "Ta-da!"

Chris stared down at a couple of dozen or more masks, all in the exact same material: black with white dots.

"Black-and-white polka dots! Your favorite!" Ezra crowed. "Your darling Groupie was uncertain. She felt you might prefer plain black to match your--" he waved a hand vaguely up-and-down in Chris's direction "--everything, but I assured her your _secret passion_ is for black-and-white polka dots, and since I am your Intimate Other--which she, at least, is aware of--she acceded to my superior, secret, insider knowledge."

He sat down beside Chris and plunged his hand into Chris's pocket, managing despite the tightness of Chris's black denim pants to snag Chris's hanky before Chris could fend him off. Ezra held the large linen square aloft.

"The last person in the _entire industrialized world_ to still use cloth handkerchiefs, you amazing throwback. But irrefutable proof of my assertion."

Chris followed Ezra's eyes to the black hanky with its white polka dots that Ezra was now idly whirling in the air with a gently mocking, but sweet, smile. Chris answered the smile and leaned his head back against the couch, settling into the comfort of re-sparring an old argument.

"At least when I have a cold, I'm not rubbing my nose raw by blowing it on freaking pieces of wood."

Ezra grinned. "Yes, yes, but don't try to change the subject. If you insist on using archaic pieces of soft cloth instead of civilized modern wood products to blow your nose, the actual question is: Why aren't they white? Like most cloth hankies seem to be.

"Or, more to the point: why aren't yours _pure black_ , to match your black-on-black thing? You know, with the black boxers, the black shirt or shirts, the black tie, the black pants, the black jeans, the black socks, the black boots or occasionally black shoes, the black scarf, the black hat, the black gloves in winter, black swim trunks in summer, the black board shorts, the black sweater, the black hoodie or t-shirt or sweatshirt, the black jogging pants--"

Chris rolled his eyes.

"All I'm saying is that, unlike me with my vastly superior taste, you have only one favorite color, Chris: black. Yet here is the anomaly that proves the rule, this penchant for _white polka dots_ on your ridiculous black hankies. So, clearly, you do in fact have one tiny hint of fashion sense in among the sea of unrelieved black. I've elevated that hint for all to see, so the world can appreciate your unseen depths." Ezra dropped the mask onto the rest on Chris's lap and leaned close to lick along the line of Chris's jaw.

Chris's eyes fluttered closed as he inhaled the faintly lavender scent of Ezra's preferred essential oil and felt the warmth of Ezra's tongue reach his ear and slowly, slowly move around its whorls.

"You're welcome," Ezra eventually whispered into Chris's damp ear.

Chris smiled and opened his eyes to look into Ezra's eyes close enough to his to appreciate the green in them without the enhancement of a mask. Chris lifted his hand and touched the tip of his forefinger to Ezra's dimpled left cheek.

"Well, then," he murmured, "reckon we better take our new masks outside to set an example. Inez has had to shut the inside of the Saloon again, but we can maybe still snag one of the outside tables."

Ezra kissed him, long and lingering, then they stood up together.

"By the way," Ezra said as they changed out of their lounging-round-the-house stuff, "I've asked your Groupie to make masks for the rest of the guys. Plus, obviously, Rain, Casey, Nettie, Mary, Billy, and Inez. She's delighted to have the work." He winked at Chris. "And you and I, my friend, get to choose the fabrics we deem appropriate for each of them."

Chris laughed, loud, startled, and genuine as Ezra always managed to make him laugh, and, despite himself, began picturing Buck, Vin, Nathan, Josiah, and JD wearing various potential mask colors and patterns. Or jokes or messages, maybe: Because surely there must be a fabric out there somewhere with _Kiss Zone_ printed on it that could be cut to fit right over Buck's mouth? So many unique possibilities....

He and Ezra shared a last visible smile, then Ezra re-attached his gaudy emerald mask to his ears while Chris chose a random black mask with white polka dots from his pile and they headed out the door.

"I hope our plushie table companions today are the capybara and the sloth," Ezra said as they walked down the street side-by-side. "I've become inexplicably fond of them. If somebody else has them, perhaps we could enact a socially distanced exchange; toss them the few feet between us or something similar. Or, better yet, I can distract the other table with my dazzling new mask and you can do a sneak exchange behind their backs! So many new avenues of opportunity opening up, all thanks to the governor finally getting his finger out."

:::::::

Chris's black, polka-dotted handkerchief in _Serpents_ :


End file.
